[ACynicalOptimist]

It's a combination of a lot of things. Ignorance of deposit methods is probably at the top of the list (I can't tell you how many times people on here make some snide remark about not playing on there because of the difficulty of depositing and withdrawing, when in reality, as a U.S. player, it is absolutely far easier for me to do both these things on wpex than on Bodog or FullTilt).

Another thing is that for most people, game selection is more important than profitability. WPEX is hugely advantageous if you're a limit player, but most people lose at limit poker anyway. The ones that win are either high-stakes professionals and so the prospective rakeback on WPEX represents a very small part of their hourly rate, or people who beat full-ring but not short-handed, or people who are just marginal winners but can't get our game to the next level. The 2nd group of people wouldn't play on WPEX because for it to be profitable for them, they'd have to be able to find 4 full-ring games playing at the same time, at any time of day they wanted to play. Good luck finding that on wpex - they're mostly short-handed games and it's rare that you'll find 4 tables of the same stakes except during the peak hours of the day.
The people in the last category are the ones who actually play at WPEX, and wish more people would come along and give us their money [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

So again, for recreational players, game selection is more important than profitability. They don't play poker like professionals or semi-professionals do, i.e. playing it regardless of whether or not they enjoy it for the specific purpose of providing or supplementing one's income to a significant extent. They play poker because they like playing poker, or because they like being a person who plays poker. They want to be able to sign on whenever and have a large choice of games to play in. They don't care that they're being paid anywhere from 20$ to 60$ an hour to play poker, because if they don't like doing it, there's no point for them to do it.

Further, many of these people play NL, which dramatically decreases the profitability of WPEX.

For a low-stakes or mid-stakes short-handed limit player, who is serious about building a bankroll or making money, not playing at WPEX is the most -EV retarded thing ever. Otherwise, it's understandable why people stick to other more popular sites.

Also yes, the marketing has been terrible, and should be blamed for a lot of this. Back when WPEX was 100% rakefree, using gimmicks of "we pay you to play poker", etc., would've worked wonders. Now it's ehh. I mean they still kinda do, but not really since you're taking 25% of everyone's money now. And a lot of people are just turned off at the fact that WPEX started with the innovation and uniqueness of 100% rakeback, and now it's been changed to 75%? I mean, that is pretty much a sign that things are failing - Fred even admitted that the 100% rakefree site experiment failed. 75% is still good, but it's not the same, and I believe the decrease just adds to people's paranoia and assumptions over WPEX's instability. The fact that the software about a year ago was unstable = people saying that WPEX is unstable, and now the switch from 100% to 75% just fuels that image that people have. This makes people not want to try WPEX = it remains low traffic = more people leave, furthering the problem and being caught in a vicious circle.

Bear in mind I say all this as a very satisfied WPEX customer. I personally think the games are good (again, so much ignorance, it is NOT a rock garden - in fact people used to say WPEX was rigged because the games are so loose-aggressive that there is sometimes a lot of variance [and a lot of profit]) the software has been good for a while, customer support has dramatically improved, and the pay-out time is constantly improving and is better than pretty much any site for U.S. players. All I'm saying is, with the history of things that have occured with WPEX, it's not surprising that it didn't take off like it should have. If GM wants to change this, I suggest using all the money they've made from the 25% rake they've been accumulating, switch back to 100% rakeback and start marketing like crazy using some of the great ideas we've heard like "we pay you to play poker" - also make sure you emphasize easy deposits, and also hire enough staff and resources so that if traffic does increase, AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, you're still able to handle cash-outs in a timely manner. If you attract people with marketing, and then take a month for the overnight mail cash-outs, customers won't be happy.